All courses

Learn the basics of Twitter by completing 1 short online activity per day, for 10 days and join the global network of researchers who already use it (http://www.nature.com/news/online-collaboration-scientists-and-the-social-network-1.15711)

This is an online course - you will NOT be required to attend a workshop session.

Tasks will cover:

• the basics – how to set up an account, follow people and send tweets
• the conventions (@, #, RT, etc.)
• etiquette and social conventions
• the plethora of ‘apps’ or third party tools to add on
• strategies for tweeting effectively and building a network

Dr Nicola Rollock and Professor Stephen J Toope in conversation

Dr Nicola Rollock and Professor Stephen J Toope discuss race, gender and identity at the University of Cambridge as part of International Women’s Day celebrations.

Dr Rollock is a leading academic, consultant and public speaker whose scholarship addresses racial justice in education and the workplace. She holds a number of advisory appointments including with the Wellcome Trust and the British Science Association. She is Distinguished Fellow at the Faculty of Education and was appointed Senior Adviser on Race to the Vice-Chancellor in October 2020.

Professor Stephen J Toope has a distinguished career as an academic leader and as a renowned scholar of Human Rights Law. He is the first non-Briton to serve as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cambridge. Since taking up the post in 2018 he has been a strong advocate for equality at the University.

AI and Technological Impacts on LGBTQ Communities – Dr Shakir Mohamed

5.30 – 6.30pm VIRTUAL MEET UP

6.45 – 8.00pm In person drinks at the Maypole 20a Portugal Place, Cambridge, CB5 8AF

AI and Technological Impacts on LGBTQ Communities Queer communities are a key part of the sociotechnical landscape of modern technologies: being shaped by technology, and in turn shaping them. I'd like to use our time together to open a discussion on technological impacts specifically for queer communities, in areas of censorship, language and identity, and sexual and mental health, and how modern technologies and the advances in artificial intelligence interact with these core issues of queer life. And hopefully hear your own experiences, thoughts, and solutions.

Dr Shakir Mohamed works on technical and sociotechnical questions in machine learning research, aspiring to make contributions to machine learning principles, applied problems in healthcare and environment, and ethics and diversity. Shakir is a research scientist and lead at DeepMind in London, an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and a Honorary Professor of University College London. Shakir is also a founder and trustee of the Deep Learning Indaba, a grassroots organisation aiming to build pan-African capacity and leadership in AI. Shakir was the General Chair for the 2021 International conference on Learning Representations, and a member of the Royal Society’s Diversity Committee.

Life is a risky business with implications for our financial wellbeing. Living longer, working later, career flexibility, and evolving family formations, mean that our financial futures are shaped not only by the decisions we make about our money, but increasingly by the decisions we make about our life.

Join this interactive session with Jane Portas to find out about financial life in the UK, differences in people’s financial life journeys, how financial gaps arise between men, women, and other groups, and what Covid-19 means for all of our financial futures.

Jane will talk about how our mindsets influence our financial life, and introduce “6 Moments That Matter”, which bring together our money and our life, and help us to consider the steps we can take at home, at work and in society to build a secure and fair financial future for everyone.

This event is open to all staff and students.

Jane Portas is a financial expert, author of The Risks in Life Series of award-winning insight reports and financial wellbeing guides, and the creator of 6 Moments That Matter, a unique life-stage approach to help people and organisations to improve fair financial futures. Now a portfolio director, she is a former ‘big 4’ professional services partner where for 30 years she advised financial services firms on strategy, governance, risk, regulation, and customer matters. She is a member of Women’s Business Council, advisor to the charity Surviving Economic Abuse, and a co-founder of Insuring Women’s Futures.

The session will be facilitated by Jenny Rampling, Chair of the University of Cambridge Women’s Staff Network, member of the Women in Higher Education Network team and Senior Programme Co-ordinator, ourcambridge.

7 Characteristics of Resilient People: Bitesize

PPD bitesize resources are short and high impact; including videos, quick tips guides and interactive bitesize modules. Develop your skills and knowledge quickly, easily, when you need. They complement face to face events and more in-depth online modules.

An introduction to the 8 Wastes (Lean methodology), and how to spot hidden waste in your own processes.

https://youtu.be/Jp5gIwr9xAU

Across the university and assoicated bodies we have many members of staff who have previously studied AAT or are currently studying. We have set up an alumni group specifically for these AAT qualified/part qualified staff as a way to maintain the connection and to support their continued development

Cyber security

Protecting the University’s assets, intellectual property and information against cyber security threats is a complex, evolving task. Cyber attacks can result in data loss, reputational damage, fines and other types of financial loss. To help protect the University against these risks, University Information Services (UIS) is overseeing a major programme to improve cyber security levels across the University

Kieren Lovell from UIS will be coming to speak about how we manage our security in the University and what steps we can take to protect ourselves.

The AAT Foundation Certificate in Bookkeeping is the starting point for studying the AAT qualfiication.

It is a short qualification which will help you to develop essential bookkeeping skills. Once completed, you will have an understanding of basic accounting practices and techniques including double-entry bookkeeping. It can be treated as a stand alone qualifcation or used as a stepping stone to further AAT study at Level 3.

Once you have registered here you will need to complete the application form at the back of the briefing pack. These packs are available on our website https://www.finance.admin.cam.ac.uk/training/professional-qualifications/aat/university-programme

These e-learning modules are available via the InforMEA e-learning platform. Information and guidance on ABS and Nagoya Protocol webpage is available on the University website.

Introduction to Access and Benefit Sharing(ABS)
This course provides an introduction to access and benefit-sharing of genetic resource that originate from overseas.
Sign up on the InforeMEA platform. Further details about the syllabus information are available here.

Introductory Course to the Nagoya Protocol
This course provides an introduction to the major components of the Nagoya Protocol.
Please see the syllabus for further details and sign up on the InforeMEA platform.

If you wish, you can take a quiz at the end of the both courses to assess your learning progress. You are required to answer at least 80% of the assessment questions correctly in order to obtain a course certificate.

Academics considering applying for promotion under the ACP (Research and Teaching) scheme are invited to attend an event hosted by Professor Kamal Munir, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for University Community and Engagement. The event will:

• provide an overview of the University's Academic Career Path (ACP) (Research and Teaching) procedure;
• answer some of the common questions about academic promotions; and
• outline the ACP CV Mentoring Scheme.

We particularly encourage women and staff identifying as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic to attend as they are currently under-represented at senior academic levels.

The Academic Career Pathway (Teaching & Scholarship) has been introduced to recognise the contribution of colleagues whose primary responsibilities are teaching-focussed. This workshop provides an opportunity to learn of the aims and procedures of the new promotions processes for Teaching & Scholarship staff, to reflect on how scholarship may be evidenced in applications for promotions and to consider how to develop a personal case for promotion under the appropriate Scheme.

This workshop is intended to complement personal support for career development and promotions provided in departments, faculties and University institutions. We hope that it will also help you to identify specific questions about career development and personal promotions for discussion with your mentor, line-manager or colleague(s).

The Academic Career Pathway (Teaching & Scholarship) has been introduced to recognise the contribution of colleagues whose primary responsibilities are teaching-focussed. This workshop provides an opportunity to learn of the aims and procedures of the new promotions processes for Teaching & Scholarship staff, to reflect on how scholarship may be evidenced in applications for promotions and to consider how to develop a personal case for promotion under the appropriate Scheme.

This workshop is intended to complement personal support for career development and promotions provided in departments, faculties and University institutions. We hope that it will also help you to identify specific questions about career development and personal promotions for discussion with your mentor, line-manager or colleague(s).

Research ethics and research integrity are serious issues. All researchers should consider the ethical context of the research being carried out and be able to justify decisions to the wider academic community.

This session aims to help you get think about the ethical considerations of your research by introducing you to the Department of Engineering ethical review process and investigating some case study scenarios.

Research ethics and research integrity are serious issues. All researchers should consider the ethical context of the research being carried out and be able to justify decisions to the wider academic community.

This session aims to help you get think about the ethical considerations of your research by introducing you to the Department of Engineering ethical review process and investigating some case study scenarios.

This session is for staff in HR related roles and will provide an overview of different types of Academic Leave and how and in what circumstances they should be applied.

Effective note making is an essential bridge between reading and writing. When making notes for a long piece of writing, if you paraphrase and interpret as you go along, you will be able to retrieve what you have learned from reading quickly and efficiently and often produce sections that you can drop straight into your work. This session will introduce you to the theory of good note making, discuss different note making techniques and offer advice for deciding which approach best suits your practices.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

• Explain the importance of strategic reading
• Identify strategic reading approaches that fit your needs
• Explain the difference between note taking and note making
• Explain the link between reading, note making and academic writing

Please note: This session will be offered again in Easter term, date to be confirmed.

The University of Cambridge welcomes Google for a talk about Accelerating Research with Google Cloud.

"At Google, we are passionate about supporting researchers driving scientific breakthroughs with Google Cloud and the great impact it could have on social sciences, life sciences and physical sciences.

In this session we would like to share our public dataset efforts in supporting the research community and how researchers from different fields of study can access & collaborate on large datasets using easy to use tools.

This workshop will introduce researchers to datasets and interactive big data tools that will allow researchers to ask questions, interact and develop solutions for their papers.

The Talk will also touch upon some AI/ML tools around training AI models that could benefit your research pursuit and how Cambridge University could make use of Google research credits program to explore these tools."

Please Note: This will be a hybrid event with places for people to attend in person or the option of watching online. See joining instructions in the booking confirmation email for online Teams link.

This is the In Person Face to Face version of the Live Online same course.

Please note: The event will be recorded to permit sharing for anyone unable to attend live.

The University of Cambridge welcomes Google for a talk about Accelerating Research with Google Cloud.

"At Google, we are passionate about supporting researchers driving scientific breakthroughs with Google Cloud and the great impact it could have on social sciences, life sciences and physical sciences.

In this session we would like to share our public dataset efforts in supporting the research community and how researchers from different fields of study can access & collaborate on large datasets using easy to use tools.

This workshop will introduce researchers to datasets and interactive big data tools that will allow researchers to ask questions, interact and develop solutions for their papers.

The Talk will also touch upon some AI/ML tools around training AI models that could benefit your research pursuit and how Cambridge University could make use of Google research credits program to explore these tools."

Please Note: This will be a hybrid event with places for people to attend in person or the option of watching online. See joining instructions in the booking confirmation email for online Teams link.

This is the Live online version of the Face-to-Face same course.

Please note: The event will be recorded to permit sharing for anyone unable to attend live.

This is an introduction to the popular database package Microsoft Access. The course is aimed at those who have never used the package before or have just started using it. There is an Access Fast Track course that is a shortened version of this course for those who learn at a faster pace.

This is a fast paced and shortened version of the 2-session Access 2016: Creating a Simple Database course and thus is more suitable for those who are quick learners. This course will be taught using Access 2016 on PCs (Windows 7).

This course is intended for those already using Microsoft Access 2016 who wish to explore more advanced queries and forms. Those who have attended the Access 2016: Creating a Simple Database course will find this follows on seamlessly from where that course left off - but be prepared for a harder challenge. Part of the course explores relational database design concepts for simple databases. The remainder focuses on more advanced queries and forms. The second session is optional for you to either work through and consolidate the course material, or to receive support on your own project.

Tom Levinson, Head of Widening Participation and Regional Collaboration, will discuss the new Access and Participation Plan agreed between the University of Cambridge and the government regulator, the Office for Students. This briefing will cover the contents of the plan and discuss the new targets agreed with the OfS, as well as the impact they may have on outreach and widening participation activity.

This course will show you basic principles and processes for creating accessible documents in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and PDFs.

VENUE CHANGE: Due to a clash, the venue for this event has changed and is now to be held in the New Wing Seminar room in the SSC.

PLEASE NOTE: if you wish to join this session remotely, please say so in the special requirements section of your booking so we can manage numbers in the room and ensure we send you a Teams link.

This is an opportunity for staff supporting students with their transition to undergraduate study to share good practice and useful findings from their experiences working with Cambridge students. There will be showcases by speakers working with current students with an opportunity for Q&A, as well as time for networking and building connections with colleagues across the Collegiate University.

Any colleagues interested in contributing a short (ten minutes max) presentation to the showcase would be very welcome to do so and should email apevaluation@admin.cam.ac.uk in the first instance.

Back by popular demand

We have decided to add an extra CPD session this year. There have been a number of requests for an additional session with a University specific focus and so Spencer Moore (Acting Head of Tax/International and Corporate Tax Manager) will be covering some of the tax issues that we need to be aware of.

Qualified staff can use this towards their annual CPD.